Quick Look: StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void

@deathpooky: For me, anything past Wrath of the Lich King is where I checked out on Blizzard's brand of writing/storytelling. I think the Arthas saga was the last great piece of lore they constructed, there was a very noticeable change in tone in everything they did afterwards, including Starcraft. Playing through Starcraft I & Brood War and then jumping straight into Wings of Liberty, it's incredible how much the tone changed. Granted it was a very long time between the two games, I imagine most of the writing staff back then is long gone now.

Aren't you basically just asking what the deal is with the rts genre in general? because you kinda are.

RTS at its core is about simulating a childhood fantasy of having a big pile of toys and playing with those big pile of toys. You make cool buildings, you make cool little doods and tanks etc and you throw them at other buildings, doods and tanks. That's the appeal. You don't like the idea of that at its core? then RTS just isn't for you and that's fine.

But their are plenty, especially this one, that allow anyone with even the most casual interest in such a type of game to still enjoy it. SC2 has had an extremely easy easy mode since day 1. My interest in the genre has barely ever gone outside of the simple act of enjoying it as a big dumb toy box simulator. You don't need to be super in to the competive mp to enjoy these games at all as most have fantastic campaigns and highly replayable content across various modes as well as co-op stuff to goof around with friends with.

Hot Janet Jackson references in 2015. Y'know... if you're nasty.

Dragoons fucking suck! Blink Stalkers 4 lyfe!

That's exactly what I love about RTS's. Because you don't earn bonuses to make you more powerful over time, the only way to progress is by actually getting better at the game.

@nymbel: Drink every time Brad says, "literally."

Well the campaign of the story does let you progress to get stronger.

Fuck yeah! Dragoons! Dragoons!

I enjoy both mobas and rts games and I feel like there's room for both but you can't deny that mobas are more accessible. They make take longer to master but it's a lot easier to control than your standard rts game since you are playing just one unit.

This expansion is a lot of fun though and the coop is a good time. Hopefully they add a lot more new missions for that mode.

It's fine if RTS games don't end up being big eSports. I just want more high-quality RTS games. Aside from Blizzard, I can't think of anything recently that wasn't some mid-budget/shovelware range game -- at least the ones that have been QLed have been things like Act of War and Grey Goo.

-_-

Brad, build some Dark Templar! They rock! (Or maybe he didn't have them from doing the missions in a certain order?)

I'm really enjoying the campaign so far. The only thing I liked better about Heart of the Swarm was having Kerrigan as a hero unit in the missions. Really reminded me of the fun of Warcraft 3.

I wish nobody'd told Brad about grid layout. We shouldn't encourage him to leave dota ... not for sc2.

I also wish the anime references in this QL had been slightly less... limited.

Man, I remember when SC II was Brad's deep-dive obsession. I took a break after WoL, and with a friend to to the new co-op missions, I look forward to playing StarCraft again.

Holy shit, DBZ All Sagas custom game! I haven't thought about that in YEARS. Can anyone tell me if the custom games in SC2 are as crazy as it was in Brood War? I never touched SC2, but I really want to now.

Goddamn right it is

how does it take so long for a rich company like blizzard to put out a new campaign and some units...?

ps holy shit that first mission.. talk about close, if he lost after being so cocky about winning i would have shut off the video and would have just gone to metal gear scanlon instead

I'm with Jeff, the Scrin suck it's all about GDI vs NOD.

En Taro Adun, Colonel Mustang.

Blizzard has their storytelling set to 'absurd.'

Man, if this came out any time of the year I'd be all over this shit. Maybe someday I'll actually beat the Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm campaigns.

whats this jeff i thought animeh was for jerks

barely care about starcraft, but jeff was hilarious in this quick look

Scrin is alright man...I mean they have carriers and everything.

Protoss is alright man...I mean they have carriers and everything.

Is there a gun upgrade to the carrier in the campaign? It could very well be the deciding factor for me checking this out.

Play casual, build crazy air units 1a click 1a click 1a click.

Aw man, full circle. I first found Giant Bomb looking up starcraft videos and found a video of Ryan just saying

"Starcraft starcraft starcraft...starcraft, starcraft starcraft."

4:20 PM

Huh! I thought there would have been more fanfare or an announcement of it going gold or something.

This seems to be pretty much exactly what I wanted. Blizzard has amped cutscenes to the max (for Starcraft) and campaign focused on protoss.

Too many games to play so this will be perfect to dive into in late this year or very early next year.

pushuuuu, Wakakozake is my favorite anime in a long time

Just had one of the roughest weeks in recent memory at work. Much obliged, Brad.

Legacy of the void is an amazing end to the SC2 saga. Anyone at all interested should check it out.

God, I am just the WORST person to ever watch this. I am constantly backseat driving. Brad, You are so brave to put this online.

Thanks for this QL, think I'll buy this.

Forgot to mention earlier, anyone interested in the port of the original StarCraft to the SCII engine should check out Starcraft Mass Recall.

I've used it to play through the original Starcraft and it seems like a quality product. Planning to play through Brood War once I finish Legacy of the Void.

Also, I just noticed a cool voice actor cameo:

> Typical Blizzard stuff. Lots of people getting corrupted and then redeemed.

Perfect description, nice one @brad.

Sadly it sounds like it's going to take them a while to release a new version for LotV. They're saying something like 6 months.

Might still be worth waiting though, since they added some new stuff. Honestly I found it hard to go back to the old stuff, just the minerals being tossed around in random piles was driving me up a wall.

Jeff just needs to do Raynor impressions in every quick look.

Huh, this is is still a thing, eh? I seriously forgot about SC II. And I actually really enjoyed the base game. I'll get the expansions when they're both dirt cheap.

I played a few of the co-op missions, they are pretty fun, and I also enjoy the campaign so far.

Not gonna touch multi player though.

God, they're not wrong about SC 2 seeming like a relic now. So much has changed since 2010.

Having thought about it some, I'd be willing to say that more has changed for Video Gaming in the last 5 years than the 10 before it combined.

@ruthloose said:

I don't think Heroes has cannibalized anything.

Blizzard killed the SC2 competitive scene with WCS, which kind of soured the community on it as well because it wasn't a grassroots type thing anymore and became a corporate marketing monstrosity.

"Make more marines."
"I've got like FOUR of em!"
"Well, that's enough I'm sure... Why would you ever need more than four of anything?"

LOL Jeff killed me there. :D

I was going to hold on getting this, because Fallout. But fuck... this looks great.

100,000 people watched the WCS finals. I know its not DOTA 2 numbers, but the game isn't as dead as Brad loves to say it is.

I still think Starcraft is amazing and I still have absolutely zero interest in playing it myself. I think Legacy of the Void unfortunately got crowded out by Fallout 4 and Tomb Raider in the hype train, and Blizzard didn't seem to release any prominent marketing for it.

It's just that the MOBAs have eaten StarCraft's lunch to the degree it has. It might not be dead, but compared to when StarCraft was the biggest esport out there it's a pretty amazing fall from grace.

I never got into starcraft as RTS where he who clicks fast enough wins don't interest me. Give me turn based where I can think for the win. However those cut scenes are DOPE!! Civilization take note. the story here seems awesome I may have to check this out.

And I know it is mostly a joke but there is certainly more than one anime. Ghost in the shell is quite different than is the order a rabbit.